[Interview] Tiffany Takeda opens up on High Low podcast
Fresh from her AVN performance, Tiffany Takeda broke her silence by sitting down for an exclusive interview with Emily Ratakowski's High Low podcast.
On her upbringing in France and becoming a K-pop idol:
"I grew up in Marseille and my mother would always put me in beauty pageants and dance competitions. She was really strict and wanted me to be perfect in every way. She was a singer when she was younger and dreamed of going to Eurovision but she fell pregnant with me right before signing a record deal. My dad is Christian and wouldn't let her get an abortion, so she lost the deal and then blamed me for it. She always resented my existence, but I think she also viewed me as a way to live out her dreams vicariously. My goal was to transfer to a performing arts school in New York and pursue professional ballet, but my dad is Korean and introduced my mom to K-pop and she thought I'd have more chance making it as an idol because I'm so pretty, so she sent me off to Seoul to train and then I got signed pretty quickly after that."
On being exploited in K-pop:
"The entire K-pop industry is built on exploitation and I think my group experienced the worst of it. Our agency was small so we had to do crazy things to stand out. One of the first ad campaigns I got was for Marc Jacobs footwear and I had to pose naked in nothing but the brand's shoes. My bandmate, who was raised in America, did a nude PETA endorsement. It was crazy. We were looked at more as foreign artists rather than Korean, so we got marketed like Britney and Christina did. They wanted us to be really sexy and provocative all the time. You couldn't get away with it now because the industry has changed so much and artists have more rights. Even though we hated it, it helped us become really successful, but also caused a lot of backlash that still exists to this day. No matter how much we achieve we still get hate comments for everything we do in Korea. At one point we even started working in Japan and China just to get away from it all."
On her horrifying experience with Playboy:
"My bandmate Suzy posed for Playboy first and it was a huge hit, so they wanted me to do it next. Because I had a retro image at the time they came up with a plan for me to crossover into the US market by recreating a classic Marilyn Monroe pictorial. I agreed, but I was adamant that I'd be fully clothed and we'd keep it tasteful and classy. I went to Hugh Hefner's mansion to shoot it with my old manager, Trina and as soon as I got there Hef and Trina were trying to convince me to show more skin but I refused. We had a huge fight about it and I threatened to pull the plug on the entire shoot. They told me to go wait in one of the bedrooms to cool off, and said that once I calmed down we could do the shoot how I wanted. They gave me some green tea to relax me, and after that everything is a blur. I can barely remember the shoot, but I know some bad things happened. Anyway, when the photos came out I was completely topless - I was so embarrassed. To make it even worse, I had to promote the issue in Las Vegas and on the Howard Stern show. I smiled through the pain and pretended that I was proud of it, but I wasn't."
Why she returned to Playboy as a creator and director:
"For me, the decision to partner with Playboy was about taking my power back. Hef is dead now, god rest his soul, and they have new owners now. Once they approached me to replace Cardi B and explained how empowering their new creator platform is, I was sold. For the first time in my career I was able to monetize myself on my own terms with full control. There's nobody to direct me or pressure me or exploit me. I've even put out music through my Playboy page and I was able to experiment with new sounds and lyrics that I can't do in Asia. As far as my career goes this has opened up so many new doors, but on an emotional level I've been able to heal past traumas."
On finding financial freedom:
"I can't say how much I've made on Playboy but I will say it's the most lucrative thing that I've ever done. Me and my group were taken advantage of financially throughout our entire careers, you wouldn't believe how bad it's been. Almost every label we've been a part of has ripped us off, including the last label we were with, P Nation. We ran our own independent agency for a while but the overhead was so expensive that we barely broke even. Even before we debuted we had to do crazy things for money as trainees. I also lost millions on a lingerie line I had after my business partner scammed me. This is all very common for the idol industry, but we had it worse because of our old managers. There was actually an Italian girl that used to be in our group, but after she was fired she ended up on Skid Row. Jessica recently saw her back in Seoul and said she was begging for money and wanted to do a comeback tour, it was really sad. We wanted to help her out but we've had to enforce boundaries because she was kicked out for bullying... Anyway, thanks to Playboy I've paid off all my debts and started to invest in property, and Jessica has a big partnership with Amazon. We also sold the rights to our entire catalogue to Hybe, so financially we've all never been better."
"Right now I'm just settling into my new life in Hollywood. I'm putting myself first which I've never done before. I have a lot of offers on the table but I have no idea what I want to do. Maybe I'll launch a Vegas show, write a book, I don't know. I have a lot of stories to share..."
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